tga on Nov 09 2008 | Filed under: Politics, Religion
Imagine that: a President who is intelligent, educated, rational, tolerant, and understands the proper place of religion. How refreshing and encouraging! America is already a better place.
tga on Oct 28 2008 | Filed under: Politics, Religion, Science
The very disturbing trend is US politics to move away from education and science and go toward ignorance has garnered speed in the last decade. Here’s a pair of articles that discuss this phenomenon, which is in large part driven by the religious right.
The Triumph of Ignorance, by George Monbiot.
Sarah Palin’s War on Science, by Christopher Hitchens.
tga on Sep 28 2008 | Filed under: Humour, Religion, creationism
And here’s even more of those funny videos:
tga on Sep 28 2008 | Filed under: Humour, Rant, The Bible, creationism
I wasn’t aware that the author had continued the series, so here’s a few more episodes.
tga on Sep 21 2008 | Filed under: Christianity, Fundamentalism, Politics, Religion
Here’s an excellent article by Sam Harris on the incredible stupidity and scary repurcussions of having Sarah Palin as a candidate for the vice Presidency of the most powerful (for now) nation on Earth. And with McCain ahead in the polls and old enough that there is a fairly high likelihood he will die while in office, the implications are staggering and scary. The USA seems intent on self-destruction, and taking the rest of the planet down with them.
tga on Aug 04 2008 | Filed under: Science
Phil Plait (aka The Bad Astronomer) is one of my favourite bloggers and a real gentleman (met him at TAM6). James Randi has just asked him to take the reigns of his James Randi Education Foundation (JREF)!
I couldn’t think of a better person to succeed Randi.
tga on Aug 03 2008 | Filed under: Evolution, Quotes, Religion, The Bible, Weird beliefs
Darwin’s theory of evolution was simple, beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring. But because it contradicts the allegorical babblings of a bunch of made-up old books, it’s been under attack since day one. That’s just tough luck for Darwin. If the Bible had contained a passage that claimed gravity is caused by God pulling objects toward the ground with magic invisible threads, we’d still be debating Newton with idiots too.
-Charlie Booker
tga on Jul 24 2008 | Filed under: Christianity, Fundamentalism, Religion, Weird beliefs
I’m sure many of you have heard of the whole crazy controversy over the Catholic Eucharist (aka, cracker) over in the blogosphere, especially around P.Z. Myers’ Pharyngula blog.
The whole thing is just pure insanity. I was born and raised a Catholic myself and I never believed, nor did I ever meet anyone else who actually believed the Eucharist was actually the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. What a disgusting concept! I always understood it as a symbolic communal gesture. But apparently many “fundamentalist” Catholics take this business very seriously. They lose sight of the fact that it is a symbol, and that as such, it has absolutely no meaning to anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs.
P.Z. is getting thousands of angry emails, death threats, and even an attempt to have him removed from his job. All this from supposedly loving and charitable followers of the teaching of Jesus Christ. And I always thought an omnipotent God would be perfectly able to defend himself.
Pure insanity, and oh so telling of what drives the religious mind.
PZ wrote an excellent article that explains his point of view, shows what insanity Catholics are willing to go to, and attempts to close this whole mess. Of course, it will go on for a while longer.
Get a life you crazy Catholics, you’ve been brainwashed to a point that seems to have removed all traces of rationality from your brain.
tga on Jul 16 2008 | Filed under: Evolution
An excellent article in honour of Darwin.
Here’s an excerpt:
Darwin was an amazing man, and the principal founder of evolutionary biology. But his was the first major statement on the subject, not the last. Calling evolutionary biology “Darwinism,” and evolution by natural selection “Darwinian” evolution, is like calling aeronautical engineering “Wrightism,” and fixed-wing aircraft “Wrightian” planes, after those pioneers of fixed-wing flight, the Wright brothers. The best tribute we could give Darwin is to call him the founder — and leave it at that. Plenty of people in history have had an -ism named after them. Only a handful can claim truly to have given birth to an entire field of modern science.
tga on Jun 28 2008 | Filed under: creationism
The lengths to which creationists go to ignore or twist reality never ceases to amaze me. A lot of creationists are just plain ignorant of science and one of their favourite false argument is to use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to “prove” that evolution is impossible. Most of them are just ignorant of what this law means and that it applies only to closed systems.
Well, this particular creationist numbnut who goes by the handle of awesomestnerd actually seems to understand this important point about closed versus opened systems, but yet he manages to overlook the presence of the sun!!!
One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn’t possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.